There are three types of sourdough breads I practice often: laminated dough (danish, puff pastry, and of course croissants), baguettes, and Asian style soft sandwich loaves. The appeal and punishment of them is that I can never get them prefect, which means I am forever trying to improve. In the case of soft sandwich loaves, the profile can always be taller (with the same amount of flour) & fluffier, the crumb can always be tighter and more "shredable", the mouth feel could always be softer and "bouncier". It's especially challenging when using a pullman pan with lid, not only the dough needs to be developed and fermented to pefection, the dough expansion control also needs to be precise, otherwise it either doesn't reach to the top, or the lid can literally be blown off! Recently I make it harder for myself to purchase a mesh cylinder mold, and the following is what would happen if you are not careful - much worst than a blown off lid if you ever try to clean this thing.

Anyway, let's rewind and go back to what happened. I used the following recipe:

Note: 19% of the flour is in levainNote: total flour is 250g, fit my Chinese small-ish pullman pan. For 8X4 US loaf tin, I suggest to use about 270g of total flour. For KAF 13X4X4 pullman pan, I would suggest using about 430g of total flour.

1. Mix everything but chocolate chips until stage 3 of windowpane (-30sec), see this post for details. Add chips, mix until even.2. Rise at room temp for 4 hours until double3. For pullman pan, takeout, divide into 3 portions, round, rest for 20 min. shape as instructed here for sandwich loaf. For the cyclinder mold, don't divide the dough, simply round and rest, then roll out to a rectangle with the same length as the mold, roll up like a jelly roll, put in mold.4. rise at room temp for about 4-6 hours. For my pullman pan, it should be about 80% full; for US 8x4inch pan, it should be about one inch above the edge. The dough would have tripled by then, if it can't, your kneading is not enough or over.5. bake at 375F for 20min, then 350 for 25min.

Note that egg ratio was 25% and liquid ratio was also pretty high, as the result, the pullman pan loaf came out super tall and proud.

All good until I saw how the dough was oozing out of little holes in the cycliner mold. It was so bad that I couldn't even open the mold myself, my husband had to pry it open, and eat it as following. Still yummy, but what a sad sight. I guess bigger is not always better.

Being the obessesive type, I immediately tried again. This time, lowered egg & water ratio, everything else remained the same.

Note: 19% of the flour is in levainNote: total flour is 250g, fit my Chinese small-ish pullman pan or my cyclinder mold. For 8X4 US loaf tin, I suggest to use about 270g of total flour. For KAF 13X4X4 pullman pan, I would suggest using about 430g of total flour.

1. Mix everything but chocolate chips until stage 3 of windowpane (-30sec), see this post for details. Add chips, mix until even.2. Rise at room temp for 4 hours until double3. For pullman pan, takeout, divide into 3 portions, round, rest for 20 min. shape as instructed here for sandwich loaf. For the cyclinder mold, don't divide the dough, simply round and rest, then roll out to a rectangle with the same length as the mold, roll up like a jelly roll, put in mold.4. rise at room temp for about 4-6 hours. For my pullman pan, it should be about 80% full; for US 8x4inch pan, it should be about one inch above the edge. The dough would have tripled by then, if it can't, your kneading is not enough or over.5. bake at 375F for 20min, then 350 for 25min. Phew, much better.

Used the lid for the pullman pan this time, also turned out well. No lid was blown off in the process.

I have always known in theory that eggs in dough would make the volume larger, but I guess I needed a show & tell to fully grasp the concept.

The flavor of these two versions were pretty close, but hey, the round pieces somehow tasted "more fun".

A word about those orange flavored chocolate chips, they were from http://www.worldwidechocolate.com/ . I got a "grab bag" and that's one of the items. Adds a little color and flavor to the loaves, even though a bit "artificial". :P

Comments

Absolutely Fantastic! So deserving of the not easily bestowed Empress Ying title! Perfection at every turn and quality only the royals in China could get - if they made bread, pound cakes and made orange chocolate chips of course :-) Who woupdn't be inspired by such fine baking?

round mesh pullmans will be blowing off the shelves for the Holidays! I had a basket blowout today myself but nothing like Ying's round mesh mess! But, the best reason to have baking apprentices is that they have to clean up when these blowouts happen :-)

I've to get me a round mold. I saw the glass one but we would break that just trying to get it out of the box.

Interesting discovery about eggs. I was under the assumption that they simply added protein, flavor and texture when added to a dough. So for taller and softer - eggs....

The woman I buy my grains from loves the chocolate sourdough loaves I have made her in the past - her kids do too, so now I can try this one out on her but think I will add candied orange peel instead of the chips. That site looks dangerous!!!! Truly world wide chocolate. I will not let my children EVER see it :-)

Interesting round loaf too. Like when I was a child and people baked brown bread in tin cans. Hadn't thought of that for years and years. The slices do look fun. Like rusks.

Nice looking loaves! It's a coincidence that you mention eggs and volume; I baked a loaf with a couple of eggs at the weekend (+milk), and it came out well. To continue the trend, last night I mixed my standard loaf, but substituted 200g of the 300g water for eggs (about 4). I'll be baking it tomorrow!

No, I didn't say it's 30sec of mixing, I said "This time I kneaded probably 30secs before it reaches stage 3". I hesitate to post exact mixing time and speed since it varies according to how soft the dough is, the amount of dough, what's in the dough etc. In the post I linked here (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23061/extremely-sourdough-soft-sandwich-bread-most-shreddble-soft-velvety-ever), I have describled how the dough should look and feel as the kneading progresses. I think the best approach is to have the mixer at a speed you feel comfortable with (facotry recmendation is speed 2, I have gone to 3 or 4 with small soft doughs), and closely observe how the dough looks.

After re-reading my sentence, I think it would be better if it reads "This time I STOPPED KNEADING probably 30secs before it reaches stage 3", the sentence before was indeed confusing. I will correct that in the original post. Thanks.

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